Nicholas Stephanopoulos

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Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Ph.D., received his bachelor’s summa cum laude in chemistry from Harvard University and completed a master’s in chemical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then moved to the University of California, Berkeley, where he obtained his doctorate in chemistry with Matthew Francis, Ph.D., with an emphasis on protein bioconjugation chemistry and nanotechnology. In particular, he worked with self-assembled viral capsids as nanoscale scaffolds for applications ranging from drug delivery to light harvesting for artificial photosynthesis.

Prior to joining Arizona State University, Stephanopoulos completed postdoctoral studies with Samuel Stupp, Ph.D., at Northwestern University, at the Simpson Querrey Institute for BioNanotechnology. His work developed a new category of self-assembling peptide and peptide-DNA biomaterials for regenerative medicine, with an emphasis in neural tissue engineering.

As a member of the Center for Molecular Design and Biomimetics, Stephanopoulos will develop self-assembling protein-DNA hybrid molecules as building blocks for complex materials and nano-devices with applications in medicine, biology, and energy. His work seeks to mimic the complexity of biology and is highly interdisciplinary in nature, combining organic chemistry on protein surfaces, self-assembling peptides, DNA nanotechnology and biomaterials engineering.

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In other words: When schools are given financial incentives to improve student success rates, students are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and given medication to treat it.

State-by-state differences in rate of diagnosis

To understand Hinshaw and Scheffler’s analysis, let’s take a step back and look at the numbers. The CDC has released
a great tool
that allows anyone to take a snapshot of what percentage of kids are getting diagnoses in individual states—as well as in each of 10 regions around the country—and what percentage are getting prescriptions for medications like Ritalin and Adderall.

The differences from state to state are stunning. For rates of ADHD diagnoses in children age 2-17, the spread runs all the way from Kentucky, which tops the list at 13.1%, to Nevada, at the bottom, with 3.8% diagnosed. That’s more than three times as many kids in Kentucky as in Nevada.

In terms of the percentage of kids who get ADHD medication, Louisiana tops the list at 9.2% and Nevada, again, comes in at the bottom, at 1.8%. That means Louisiana is more than five times as likely to medicate a child for ADHD as Nevada.

Differences by region

And the disparity isn’t just a matter of a couple of outlier states. The five states that have the highest rate of diagnoses—Kentucky, Arkansas, Louisiana, Indiana and North Carolina—are all over 10%. That’s more than twice the rate of the five states with the lowest percent diagnosed—Nevada, New Jersey, Colorado, Utah, and California, all at under 5%.

If you look at the rate at which children are medicated for ADHD, the same five states are at the top of the list, all of them with over 8% of kids getting medication. The states at the bottom of the list for medication—Nevada, Hawaii, California, Alaska and New Jersey—are all under 3.1%.

To take a look at where the states doing the most diagnosing and prescribing are, we note that the CDC divides the country into 10 regions. (You can
see the map of the regions here.)
The region that has the most ADHD diagnoses (9.3%) and the most kids on meds (6.6%) is the one that includes Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and the Carolinas (Region 4). For comparison, the region that has the least diagnoses (5.4%) and the least medication (3.1%) includes California, Nevada and Arizona (Region 9).

If we look a little more broadly, the four regions (4,6,7,5) that have the highest percentage of kids on ADHD medication (an average of 6.5%) are all grouped together, geographically, in the South and the Midwest. A slightly different group (4,5,6,3), but still across the South and Midwest, has the highest percentage of diagnoses (8.8% average).

The four regions (2,8,9,10) with the lowest percentage of kids diagnosed, all in the Northeast and West, have an average of 6% diagnosed, and the same four regions have the lowest rate of kids getting medication, 3.8%.

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